Google Assistant is coming to Android TV devices in 2017

While Google has kept mostly quiet during CES 2017, the search giant won’t have left Las Vegas without at least one major announcement.

Google today announced that Assistant is coming to Android TV.

While the company did not provide an exact release date for the added functionality, merely stating that its personal assistant will become available on Android TVs running Android 6.0 and above “in the coming months,” it did promise that users will soon be able to use their voice to interact with their TVs in a variety of ways.

For instance, saying something like “Play Stranger Things on Netflix,” will queue up the popular series. Alternatively, asking a question like “Tell me about Jurassic Park” will take the user to the movie’s Wikipedia page. That’s just some of the functionality coming to Android TVs courtesy of Assistant.

That said, Canadians may end up having to wait longer than their cousins to the south to start using Assistant on their Android TV. Regarding availability, Google says:

While finding a Canadian retailer that has Nvidia Shield stock available to purchase is near impossible, the set top box did, in fact, make its way to Canada. Moreover, Nvidia announced today that the newest iteration of the Shield will ship to Canada this month (MobileSyrup will have more on that later today).

As such, we’ve reached out to Google to find out if Assistant will be available in Canada via the Nvidia Shield. We’ll update this article once we hear back from the company. Stay tuned.

The company also announced that Assistant will come to other Google-developed platforms like Android Wear 2.0 and Android Auto, though once again the search giant did not provide a timeline for when its personal assistant will make the leap to those platforms.

Update 2017/01/05: Google has informed MobileSyrup that even on the Nvidia Shield the rollout of Google Assistant to will be limited to U.S.-based Android TV devices.

Yeah I bought a Shield several months ago from Best Buy and they had plenty in stock back then of both the base and Pro model. Since then, its near impossible to find any stock however I do notice that there is already the capability to talk to Shield via the remote to pull up programs and content already. Adding Google search capability is just an added bonus for sure.

DownwithRobellus

I’m so glad to hear that Google kept quiet at this year’s CES because they should be focusing on bringing Android Pay world wide, fixing hangouts, ensuring other manufacturers try to stick close to the pure android experience, resolving bugs in 7.0 and making a road map of supporting their devices (ie. Nexus 6). I feel like this billion dollar company just half asses everything they throw their money at. Google Wallet didn’t work so let’s do a name change and try again….just stop it already!

thereasoner

Google Wallet worked great, it was carriers and banks that weren’t yet supporting it. As for Android Pay, I’m sure that it’s the ridiculous amount of NFC capable Android phones out there that are slowing and complicating the adoption process with the banks. The list of supported devices should be interesting to see when it does come about.

Smanny

Google’s Assistant will be in Android Wear 2.0.

Arman

Really good!

Brad Fortin

Is this going to be the version of Google Assistant that’s currently exclusive to the Pixel, the version of Google Assistant that’s currently on Google Home, or the version of Google Assistant that’s currently in the Allo app? Or is this going to be a new version of Google Assistant?

dougo13

No CANADA again? What is the problem THIS time??

Matt Badke

I just talked to a rep at Nvidia who said Canada would in fact be getting assistant on the Shield. He couldn’t comment on when however…